How to use these Instructions

The Interface:

The interface of this instruction "manual" should be fairly simple to figure out, however there are a few buttons whose meaning is not immediately apparent.

At the top of the navigation frame on the left you will see a text link called "Tree".  Clicking on this link will remove the navigation buttons and will present a Table of contents in a collapsing outline form.  Certain items on that Table of Contents are marked with a (+) symbol.  Clicking on this symbol will expand or contract that level of the TOC. 

This is intended for those people who wish to have a table of contents on screen at all times and those who find it too tedious to return to the main TOC in the regular navigational structure.

At the top of the TOC page in the navigation frame is a text link called "Buttons".  Clicking this link will replace the TOC with the standard Navigational buttons.  The six navigational buttons are divided into two groups of three buttons each.  The first three are all internal to the instructions themselves.   The Contents button will bring up the table of contents into the main frame.

The Back and Forward buttons operate identically to the Back and Forward buttons in your Browser.  In other words, clicking the Forward button will not do anything unless you have first gone "Back" from another page.

The next three buttons are all external links so you must have a live Internet connection for them to work.  The Home button will take you to the home page of my site.  The Trouble Button will take you to the Interactive Troubleshooter on my site and finally the Discuss button will take you to the discussion forum on my site.   These buttons are intended to give you easy access to further help should anything in these instructions be unclear or in case you need further information.

Finally, at the bottom of each page in the instructions will be Previous and Next buttons - these allow you to easily access the previous or next topics in the instructions without the need to return to the TOC.

Using the Instructions:

The most important thing to keep in mind while you read these instructions is that they are current as of Arachnophilia version 3.9 (build 5142).  Thus, if you have a different version some of the features I discuss may be missing or the options may be in a different menu location.  If you have an older version please be aware that some of the internal codes used by older versions of Arach no longer function and I have correspondingly updated my toolbars to be functional with the current version.   Thus if certain toolbars buttons do not seem to be functional (specifically the Table button) I'd recommend that you upgrade to a newer version of Arach.

Do I have to read everything?:

While these instructions were written with the intention that you would read everything in the order it is presented, I am not naive enough to think that will actually happen - there's a lot of information here and I know that some people just do not like to read documentation.  Thus, this section will tell you what you should read to be able to use the toolbars effectively.

Users of Version 2.0 of my toolbars have theoretically already read most of this information, therefore they can not realistically be expected to re-read everything.   At the very least, these people should read the What's Changed page to find out what is new in this version.  Also recent versions of Arachnophilia have introduced a few new features which may prove to be useful, thus the Base Calculator, Internal Browser and Open with Arachnophilia pages should also be read.  It would also be a good idea to read the following pages as a brief review: Organizing your Stationery, Auto-Copy, Creating your First Stationery, Combining Scripts, and the Homework section.  If you're having problems - be sure to check out the Bugs & Fixes page as well.

For New users - ideally you will eventually work your way through everything, but to get a quick start, you should at least read the following:  Introduction, Organizing your Stationery, The Arach Interface, all the pages in the Explanations of some Arach Basics section, & Creating your first Stationery.  Reading those pages will provide you with all the background information you need as well as the basic skills used when creating Stationery with Arach and my toolbars.  There is no point in wading through each page in the Big List section if you aren't going to use most of those features.  A quick read through the following will get you up and running with the features most commonly used in stationery:  Basic, Email, Sound4 / Sound5, Scroll, and the first 3 sections in the Right Click Menu section. The rest of the instructions may be read as time and interest allow, though you should make a point of working through the Homework section - this will help you get more experience with the program and will serve to reinforce the skills you need to use the program effectively.  If you're having problems - be sure to check out the Bugs & Fixes page as well.